Respite
by J9
Summary: Warrick and Sara take a break from the party (Warrick-Sara)


**Title: **Respite

**Author:** Jeanine (jeanine@iol.ie)

**Rating:** PG

**Pairing**:  Warrick/Sara

**Feedback:** Makes my day

**Disclaimer:** If it was in the show, it's not mine.

**Archive:** At my site Checkmate , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.

**Summary:** A break from the party

**Notes: **For the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Party" challenge. Not sure it quite fits, but there you go! 

***

The garden is beautifully landscaped and maintained, verdant green bushes in the middle of the Vegas landscape, and in the middle of the lawn, there is an elegantly maintained band gazebo, fairy lights twinkling along its trellis, giving the structure an ethereal glow. Leaning against the barrier, there is a woman, who has turned her back on the hotel, on the sounds of the party on the lawn, the celebration at which she is a guest, and while Warrick's not a big poetry person, the only words that come to mind when he looks at her is "high and solitary and most stern." 

He knows why she's here though – what else could she have done, being what she is? 

"Don't tell me you're out here for a cigarette break," he quips, though he knows that's not the reason, but thinks it's better to make a joke. His instincts serve him well when Sara doesn't jump, but does turn slightly to smile the barest ghost of a smile at him. 

"Just taking a break," she tells him. "You know me and parties."

He nods, comes into the gazebo beside her, places his glass of champagne on the ledge beside hers, leans against it, facing her, facing the direction of the party. "I know you and this party," he says frankly. "I wasn't sure you'd come."

She shrugs, her lips twisting in something that's midway between a smile and a grimace. "Catherine's my friend," she tells him. "So is Grissom. Why wouldn't I come to their engagement party?" He lifts an eyebrow, because the only obvious answer is the one that he's not going to give voice to, and he's mildly surprised when she does it for him. "Because I'm in love with Grissom?"

He looks her in the eye and he does not blink. "Aren't you?"

She smiles, this time more genuinely, and she shakes her head. "Once," she admits, which is more than she's ever done in the past. "A long time ago. But not anymore."

He tilts his head curiously. "What happened?"

Another shrug. "I got over him." She makes it sound so simple, and he can't quite believe that it's that easy, even though he really wants to, especially when she continues, "And I'm happy for them." Then it's her turn to tilt her head, look up at him almost in challenge. "I thought you might have issues with coming to this party yourself."

He feels himself grinning. "Because I'm supposed to be in love with Catherine?"

She lifts an eyebrow, mimicking his earlier expression exactly he notices, and he tries not to think what emotion might be behind the mimicry, because that would be too much to hope for. "Want to tell me you weren't?"

"Attracted, maybe," is all he'll admit to. "But it never went any further than that."

But Sara's not going to let it go at that. "So what brings you out here?"

"I noticed you'd disappeared from the party," he tells her. "Was worried about you. What?" This last in response to the smile on her face, the little shake and downward tilt of her head. 

"I just didn't think you'd notice I was gone," she says quietly, and he smiles softly, looking her up and down. 

"I noticed Sara," he tells her. "Believe me, I noticed." Because he hasn't been able to keep his eyes off her all day, the upswept hair and halter necked top exposing more of the bare skin of her back to his view than he'd ever seen before, the long skirt swishing along the ground as she walked giving only the briefest tantalising glance of her legs. That would be enough, but the colour, a shimmering blue, is doing amazing things to her eyes, to her skin, and he doesn't think he's ever seen her look lovelier, apart from maybe right now, when she looks down with an unmistakable blush rising up her cheeks, and thanks to the cut of her dress, he can see that it starts a lot lower than that. 

"Matter of fact," he says, carefully reaching out a hand to her shoulder, "I'm pretty sure Cath's pissed at you… must be bad etiquette to outshine the bride-to-be at a bash like this."

Sara chuckles, still looking down. "I don't know about that," she demurs, and his hand moves from her shoulder to her chin, tilting her head up so that he can look into her eyes. 

"I do," he whispers, and for a second, he allows himself to wonder how, even when he's been entertaining thoughts like this for a while, have things progressed so far so fast, when he only came out here seconds ago to check up on her. 

Then his lips meet hers in the briefest of first kisses, and he stops thinking altogether. 

A second that could be a lifetime later, he is looking into her eyes once more, and she is smiling once more, shakily, but happily, and her hands are on his chest, playing with the lapels of his jacket. "I'm glad you came out here," she tells him, and he grins, in total agreement with her. 

"Come on back to the party," he says, slipping one arm around her waist, returning to her her glass of champagne with the other. "I want to dance with the most beautiful woman in the room."

Her cheeks are pink, but she falls into step beside him, and once back at the party, that's what they spend the rest of the night doing. 


End file.
